Alex Howes has done plenty of epic things on a bike: 12 years on the WorldTour, followed by a shift to gravel and mountain bike events like the Life Time Grand Prix. But his first ever Vapor Trail 125 in Salida, Colorado this September was still a special moment: He said he wanted to do the race because folks who live in the Colorado mountains, who might know nothing of the Tour de France, consider it to be absolutely legendary.
And it was, even for a rider of his experience. About five hours into the race, he looked back at the top of a vista into the absolute darkness of 3 AM on a near-freezing, moonless night and realized he was so hammered he couldn’t tell if the line of lights behind him was bike lights from fellow racers, or just more stars in the endless sky.
As alternative off-road racing like gravel and long distance mountain biking continues to grow in mainstream popularity, and events add lotteries and various (usually expensive) ways of gaining entry, there have always been smaller, grassroots events that have (sometimes happily) stayed off the radar. These races are kin to ultrarunning tests like the Barkley Marathons: they are often legendarily difficult, yet have historically held little prestige outside of local lore; prizes are modest, quirky, or non-existent; and the start lines are often populated by the same hardy souls who helped hatch the mind-bending routes in the first place. But lately, the fields have been growing, and have gotten attention from elite athletes who are prioritizing these fringe races even above the well-known events like those on the Grand Prix that come with (at least a little) fame and fortune.
Call it a return to roots. Jeff Kerkove, who has won the VT125 in the past and took fourth place this year, told Escape that bike racing started out grassroots, where people would get together and go do something challenging and fun. “Then it got corporate, it got expensive, but now it’s kind of coming back around,” he said. “People are seeking out the more adventurous, more grassroots feel again.”
The difficulty is the point
We’ve always sought out big unknowns in racing. A century ago, completing the Tour de France was thought of as pushing the absolute limit of what’s possible on a bike. In the 1926 edition, for instance, 126 riders started and only 41 finished. Eighty-two of those who lined up were touriste-routiers – they had no support from a team. At the time, stages were 350-450 km, through rugged terrain like unpaved passes high in the sparsely populated Pyrenees. In order to meet the late afternoon print news deadline, these mega stages would start at 2 or 3 AM and were followed by a full day of recovery. There were so many unknowns as the riders pedaled off, into the darkness.
Today, athletes are still seeking those gigantic experiences: Ways to drift into survival mode and find out what it’s like to ride through the night, fend for oneself, and learn a little about grit.
Perhaps chasing courage has become cool again because of a recent flattening of the off-road race scene in the US, to the point that even in races like the Leadville 100, the outcomes are fairly predictable. And so elite athletes are seeking something more raw – a competition where the result isn’t guaranteed, and what happens along the way is the real adventure.
The Colorado backcountry is a prime location for many of these grassroots, no-frills, show-up-and-survive events. One such race is the Vapor Trail 125, whose name derives from its distance and the multiple abandoned steam-engine railroad grades that the loop takes on.
Vapor takes place mostly on technical singletrack in the mountains surrounding Salida. The race begins at 10 PM, has some 15,500 feet (4,700 m) of climbing, and the vast majority of it is spent above 10,000 feet (3,000 m) elevation in the backcountry, on the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. There are even sections that push above 12,000 feet (3,700 m), where there are no trees for protection and the air is thin. Doing anything above treeline in the thick of the night carries more than a hint of danger. But it also offers an unmatched view of the stars, the inky cliffs in the distance, and the occasional glint of eyes just off the trail.
Throughout the ride athletes can experience temperatures ranging from below freezing to above 80° F (27°C). It’s a constant juggle of layers to stay comfortable, or at least mobile. There are aid stations, but race guidelines state that all participants must be self-sufficient and able to get back to town if they decide to drop from the race. Racers spend hours and hours totally alone.
While this race – founded by local legends Shawn Gillis, Tom Purvis and Andrew Mesesan – has been around for two decades, it’s only recently started to attract some of the biggest names in off-road racing. In the past the race has been limited to 75 entries and has never sold out. This year it sold out, then 50 more entries were added, and it sold out again.
Gillis, Purvis and Mesesan put the event together in 2005, and have only made a handful of changes since. In the early years they rotated race-directing duties, so that they could each ride it as often as possible. Gillis got the honor of riding the first year. “The original concept was to ride all the best singletrack in the area in a single day,” Gillis told Escape. Back then it started at midnight, and the goal was to ride from dark to dark.
This year’s start list included the likes of Howes, pro enduro rider Becky Gardner, and off-road pro Taylor Lideen.
Lideen, who has won long-distance trail races like the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo (solo and duo), Rule of Three, and Unbound XL, told Escape he’s been thinking about this race for eight years, and prioritized it over all other races on his calendar this year.
“First of all, I love anything revolving around the Colorado trail. I’m kind of obsessed with it,” Lideen said. But some of his big fears have gotten in the way of signing up in years prior. Namely: lightning, altitude, and mountain lions. This year, though, he decided to go for it.
“I have a really big fear of lightning, so anything above tree line for me, I’m really, really cautious,” he said. “I’ve had some pretty close calls with lightning, and it’s kind of scarred me.” The race’s September spot is usually outside of Colorado’s summer monsoon season, which carries the highest risk for electrical storms. But the mountains don’t follow a calendar, and anything can happen. But for Lideen, all those concerns faded by race day. “As soon as the race started, my mind was pretty much clear from worry,” he said.
So why now?
Lideen says he was sick of saying, “‘One day I want to do it.’ Just like, let’s do it. And actually, I’ve already registered for next year.”
‘No one knows how they’ll perform out there’
Becky Gardner had a similar experience. After putting it off for years, she finally prioritized it. “Vapor had been on my mind ever since I moved to Salida over a decade ago,” she told Escape. “Back then I was deep into the downhill racing scene, living my ‘Only ride park’ lifestyle and traveling across the country to race and shred gravity-fed courses. Around that time, I got my first short-travel ‘enduro’ bike from Kona and began exploring Salida’s epic terrain.”
This was around the time that Gardner started hearing whispers about Vapor. “I remember seeing this small group of crazy riders gearing up for what seemed like an impossible feat: riding 100 miles straight through the night,” she recalled.
But she stayed intrigued. “I thought, ‘One day, I’ll do that.’ As the years passed and my DH career shifted toward racing the Enduro World Series, my time on the bike got longer and the idea of tackling Vapor Trail felt less crazy and more attainable. After completing a few 100-mile races and spending years getting familiar with the Rockies’ rugged backyard, I knew it was time to finally take on Vapor Trail. So, this spring, I signed up – and I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t gaslight my brother and friends into joining me.”
Mike Franco, current Vapor Trail race director, has done a fair amount of epic mountain bike racing himself, and says part of the appeal to elite athletes is they are starting to get burned out on conventional off-road racing. “I think a lot of pros are doing what their sponsors want them to,” he said. “They’re doing what gets the coverage, and they’re falling into this Groundhog Day rhythm. It’s not super technical, just trying to rip each other’s legs off for five or seven hours.”
Franco says elites are seeking out Vapor precisely because there’s uncertainty. “It makes people scared. It gives you that feeling that no other race does,” he said. “No one knows exactly how they’ll perform out there, no matter what. It’s uncharted territory.”
Franco has directed and helped with lots of different races, but Vapor is his baby now. “I’ve been involved with it for a decade, it’s so special to me,” he said. “I was trying to find the coolest, hardest, most unique event when I was racing, and I found Vapor. I was like, ‘This is it. This is the crown jewel of ultra-endurance, rugged mountain bike events.’”
On race day Franco might be the only person who works harder than the racers. He has a crucial team of volunteers, but it’s small – more like extended family and nothing on the institution that is Unbound. Franco himself is out all night, and the next day, at aid stations where he fixes bikes, cooks food, and rallies entrants who are getting dangerously close to time cutoffs. He wants nothing more than to see people succeed at something really, really hard, even if that means failing further along than they thought they would.
The current course records stand at 12 hours and 24 minutes for men, set by Josh Tostado, and 15:55 for the women, set by Jari Kirkland Hiatt. Nolan Van Harte won this year’s race, in a time of 12:42:25, followed by Howes in 13:27:19. Lideen was leading the race early on, and on pace for a course record, but had an unfortunate accident that left him unable to continue at about halfway.
“I came over a little rise, and was just going a little too fast,” Lideen said. “There was an embedded boulder right in the middle of the trail. I went over the bars so hard, blew the front tire out, tweaked the bike up a bit, banged the wrist up pretty good. And also my left shoulder. I limped into that Monarch aid station and the volunteers were absolutely incredible. I don’t think I’ve been to a race where they’re that good and intuitive to the riders’ needs and wants.”
After working with volunteers to bandage things up, Lideen bowed out, hungry to give it another go next September.
Kerkove, a Vapor vet who has completed the race 10 times now, says these kinds of events often take a while to catch on. “It’s been around since 2005, and I’ve been helping Mike [Franco] and even the prior race director Keith Darner with some of the social media,” he said. “I don’t know how many people every year say something like, ‘Oh this new event looks great,’ but it’s not new; it’s been around.”
Van Harte, this year’s winner, says he only became aware of Vapor Trail in 2021, hearing that it was a ridiculous remote backcountry route beginning at night. “I had raced Jesse Jakomait’s Monarch Mind Bender in 2020,” he said of a free and unsanctioned event that was part of the Colorado Endurance Series. “That was my first ‘ultra.’ Knowing how hard the Mind Bender was and that Vapor was even harder, I had to give it a try.” He predicts more riders, including big names, will continue to show up.
“I think moving forward we’ll see more pros forego the singletrack deficient and soulless new-age racing and return to their roots of mountain biking. Riding because they love it, not because of the asks of sponsors. I think more pros will want to seek out even more discomfort and that next difficult and exciting race.”
It’s not all discomfort, though. Quite the opposite if you ask Gillis. The sun eventually rises, hands thaw out, and you can trace a perfect ribbon of dirt for miles on trails like the famed Monarch Crest. After finishing the race this year, Gillis says he still loves riding those trails more than any others. “When I get to Monarch Pass, I always know I can make it down. The rest [of the race] is the best trails in the whole world. There’s a little bit of climbing on Starvation, but you’re pretty much home free.”
If nothing else it seems certain that more pros will branch out to add some of these big scary adventures to their “job requirements.” Ways of leveling the playing field so that sometimes the person with the strongest legs doesn’t necessarily win—sometimes it takes problem solving, patience, and a little luck.
It’s not for everyone, but it is for some
While the darkness, altitude, technical backcountry trails, and drastic temperature changes of Vapor seem like the ultimate combination of challenges, there are other adventure races that stack up. Marji Gesick is a mountain bike (and trail running event) held in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that has a similar vibe to Vapor but with roots and humidity instead of exposure and thin air.
It’s 100 miles almost entirely on double-black-diamond trail segments: big rocks, sprawling roots, epic climbs, and the opposite of flowy descents. It’s a LeMans start, where athletes have to run a half mile to get to their bikes, and then start pretty quickly into technical trail. Finish rates vary between 25% and 65%.
Jeremiah Bishop, the multi-time national champion and former Olympian, just completed his third Marji Gesick. Bishop went into his first try, in 2017, largely unprepared, or rather unaware that a race could be so difficult in so many different ways. “I was dying out there. I missed an aid station, head down. And then I crashed on the muddy, slick rocks, just about 10 miles to go, and landed my thigh right on a round Boulder, almost breaking my leg,” he said. He still won, but was completely demoralized in the process.
“The following year I went back, and I’m like, ‘Alright, I’m getting ready for this one.’ I did a bit of running, I was coming off of a really strong race season, and set the course record in nine hours 45 minutes. It still crushed me, but I did a little better.”
Bishop decided to go again this year, for the race’s 10th anniversary. “What brought me back was that in a lot of the other races you’re just between the tape, and you know exactly what’s going to happen. It gets kind of boring after a while.”
Like other entrants to these races, Bishop is no masochist. “I don’t want to do tough things most of the time,” he said. “In fact, being comfortable is quite great. If it’s raining out, I’m very happy with a cup of tea sitting inside looking out at it.” But even after a decades-long career marked by almost every kind of accomplishment possible, he still likes to test his limits.
“When we go and we step out and we take on something occasionally this tough, then it hits the reset button,” he said. “It gives you so much that cannot be described. The process and the experience of being in the forest in the dark, you can’t get that anywhere else, and that’s what’s so incredible.”
Other events exist in the same style of Vapor and Marji, and are even more off the radar and solitary. One such race is the Leadville Big Friggin Loop, which is free and limited to 74 participants (to qualify as a non-commercial event held on federal land). Registration involves a signature on a WordPress site, essentially saying you know this is kind of a stupid idea. Like Vapor, it too involves quite a bit of high elevation, backcountry terrain, and self-supported endurance. According to the website, there are “no prizes, no sponsors, no entry fees, no buckles, and no free socks.”
Lideen also mentioned Bentonville’s Rule of Three, not because it has the darkness or the altitude, but because it takes so much smarts. It’s less about having absolute fitness, which does come in handy, and more about surviving without mechanical failure on a course that would honestly be ideal split between three bikes: road, gravel, and mountain. But you can only choose one.
For the athletes who try these epic adventures, where the trails aren’t lined with a cheering crowd, and you’re alone with your own head and your own abilities, failure isn’t as damning. It’s more a chance for learning and an opportunity to go again. But past the accomplishment, the experience itself of these raw, rugged events is as deep a draw. “Something like Vapor has almost a mythical allure,” Lideen said. “You spend so much time above treeline, at like two in the morning. Not many people in the world get to do that type of thing. So if you have the ability to do it, it would be kind of a waste not to try.”
Gardner agrees. “Finishing Vapor Trail 125 tops the list of my bike achievements,” she said. “It was an absolute blast, and I can’t wait to do it again. There’s something magical about riding through the pitch black of night, high up on Colorado’s peaks, surrounded by 100 other equally crazy riders – it does wonders for the soul.”
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